Safley Remove hardware

[vonfeldt7]

I've always wondered what the point of this is, but never really asked. I've searched, but not found what I'm looking for.

What is the point of "safely remove hardware and what does it do? (other than the obvious answer...safely removing hardware).

What happens if I dont do this? Because I have a built-in 13 in 1 card reader, and whenever I have an sd card or w/e in, and use safely remove hardware, they [built in card readers] stop working/being detected until I restart the computer.

Anyways, thanks.

 

[PohTayToez]

I think it's mostly used for storage devices, such as card readers, flash drives, and SATA drives, because if you were to remove the device while it was transmitting data, it could corrupt it and you'd lose everything.

 

[cryption]

if you disconnect it without "safely removing" it can short out the USB device causing damage or at the least loosing all your data. I had to teach my girlfriend that after her 3rd USB drive.